"Twice like a barn owl, twice like a brown owl, no once like a barn owl, twice like a brown owl?"
Bilbo Baggins cannot believe the speed with which he found himself in this situation. One moment the bowls of stew were being taken from his hands by Fili and Kili and the next they were shoving him towards the troll camp with strange instructions about owls. He doesn't have the faintest idea what to do. He's a hobbit from the Shire, not a troll-slayer for goodness sake.
Quiet on his hobbit feet, Bilbo creeps towards the shimmering firelight of the troll's camp. He hopes Fili and Kili are behind him somewhere in the trees because this is too big of a task for just one person, let alone one hobbit. He hears grunting and snorting up ahead and disgusting sounds of a troll blowing it's nose with enough force to shake the trees.
"Mutton yesterday, mutton today and, blimey if it don't look like mutton again tomorrow," one of the trolls says in its deep voice.
The trolls are repulsive, arguing amongst themselves about how to cook horse. He stays out of the firelight, low to the ground in the trees and bushes that surround the fire in the middle of the clearing. Bilbo spies the pen where the troll is putting the two newest horses they have nabbed.
As Bilbo approaches the pen where the horses were kept, he is met with a most alarming sight. Inside the pen, propped against one of the posts, is a young woman, bound hand and foot and cruelly gagged with a piece of rope. There is dried blood along her hairline and the leg of her pants are torn, revealing a nasty looking laceration. She is a small woman, slight in stature and heartbreakingly thin and malnourished from captivity.
He briefly wonders how she could have come to be here. There are no settlements in the area aside from the abandoned farm house that the dwarves are currently using as an encampment. A lone traveler, perhaps? But it is rare for a woman to be traveling alone, let alone in this area of the world. Her clothes are nondescript; she could be anyone.
She is unconscious, head lolling to the side. Gently, he laid a hand on her shoulder and put a finger to his lips as she roused.
She comes to suddenly, with a muffled noise of surprise and a wince of pain. He motions for her to be quiet and she nods slightly, eyes wide with shock at seeing him here before her. Carefully he pulls the rope from her mouth and she shifts her jaw experimentally to relieve the lingering discomfort in her neck. Her lips are cracked at the edges and a thin trickle of blood winds its way down to her chin. He tries to untie her legs but the knots are too convoluted. He feels a small tap of fingers on his shoulder. Quietly, she taps the corner of her eye, points to him, looks at the trolls and then taps her hip. Upon seeing his confused expression, she repeats the gesture. Catching on, he looks over at the troll's hip. There is a wicked looking blade attached to the snot-nosed troll's side. Bilbo looks back at her incredulously.
She points to the knot holding the pen shut and mimes an untying motion. Bilbo takes the hint and gives it a try. It proves to be an exercise in futility. There is too much grit and goodness knows what else encrusted in the hemp. The girl mimes that she wants to help but can't due to her bound wrists and legs which are equally restrained. Bilbo nods and takes a big gulp. He knows what this means. He stares at the troll's hip, at the blade swinging back and forth and clenches and unclenches his hands in preparation. As he turns, he feels soft, reassuring fingers on his arm and the small gesture is enough to give him courage. Her eyes urge him to be careful.
Bilbo creeps towards the trolls, shushing the horses when they whinny, shuffling away in disgust from the spinal bones of some animal consumed long ago. "Just needs a sprinkle of squirrel daddle," one of the trolls says and Bilbo freezes as the smallest troll reaches towards him for his grog. A small fight breaks out, one of them shrieking "Shut your caker!"
Their obliviousness would have amused him if he hadn't been so terrified. Hesitantly, he reached for the blade but ducked quickly as the troll swings his hand towards its back. The troll stands and Bilbo crouches down as low as his hobbit legs will allow him to squat. It scratched its behind, much to Bilbo's disgust and then sat back down. Bilbo took a deep breath and stood. He used his hands to measure and calculate the length of the handle of the blade. Just as he grasps the leather-covered hilt, a giant troll hand swings around to grab ahold of him and promptly use the poor hobbit as a handkerchief.
There was a moment of shocked silence as Bilbo realized he was covered in troll snot and the troll looked incredulously at the thing in his large hand.
"Blimey, look what's come out o' me 'ooter!" it exclaimed. "It's got arms and legs and everything!"
Bilbo and the troll regard each other in a mixed kind of shock and disgust, the troll because it's too stupid to know what it has wriggling in its hand and Bilbo because he is drenched in troll boogers.
"What is it?" Asks the troll who was discussing spices in the stew earlier.
"I don't know but I don't like the way it squirms around!" The snot-nosed troll drops Bilbo onto the ground as if burned and Bilbo gasps upon the impact. He hurriedly tries to get to his feet and run but finds himself surrounded by the three trolls. He quickly darts a glance over to the pen and sees the girl moving, eyes round as teacup saucers, trying to free herself and come and help him.
"What are you then?" The burly troll with the flat-face demands of him, threatening Bilbo with his rough-hewn knife. "An over sized squirrel?"
"I'm a burglar-hobbit," Bilbo says, panicked and adled.
"A burglarhobbit?" The snot-nosed one says, confused, his small brain incapable of much more thought.
"Can we cook him?" The knife wielding troll asks in his low gravelly voice.
"We can try!" The snotty troll hoots and makes a grab for Bilbo.
Bilbo tries to run but the cook-troll beats him back into the fire light with his giant ladle. "He wouldn't make much more than a mouthful, not when he's skinned and boned!"
Bilbo dodges out of the way as the trolls sweep their hands towards him. "It's too quick!" The small one yells. The ladle crashes into one of the trolls knee caps as he swings and misses as Bilbo ducks between the trolls legs. The flat-faced troll grabs him by the legs as he tries to get to the horse pen and holds Bilbo upside down. He catches a brief glimpse of the girl, trying in vain to help him.
"Are there any more of you little fellows hiding where you shouldn't be?" The flat-faced troll demands.
"No, nope, just me," Bilbo manages to force out past the lump in his throat.
"He's lying," Snot-Nose cackles.
"No I'm not!" Bilbo tries, the blood rushing to his head from being held upside down for so long.
"Hold his toes over the fire," the snot-nosed troll sneers. "Make him squeal!"
Just then Kili steps into the firelight and swings his sword down across the back of the troll's knees, making it yowl in pain. The other two trolls swing around to look at the dwarf with low throaty growls.
"Drop him!" Kili demands, brandishing his sword, the Dwarish iron gleaming in the firelight.
"You wot?" one of the burly trolls demands.
"I said, drop him!" Kili yells back and the troll holding Bilbo growls and throws the panicked hobbit right at Kili. Kili awkwardly catches Bilbo and they land in a heap as the rest of the Company burst into the clearing, swords and axes drawn, bellowing war cries.
As Thorin and Dwalin lead the charge, Fili stops to help Bilbo up. "Get to safety!" He tells the hobbit and then he and his brother dive into the fray.
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The battle with the trolls is almost comedic if it weren't for the fact that they are fighting foes three times their size with brains the size of walnuts.
Fili slashes the arm of one of the dwarves that is holding Ori hostage and spins in the firelight.
Fili catches a glimpse of Bilbo freeing the horses, but one of the trolls spots the hobbit. He vaults a log and runs towards Bilbo. In desperation, Fili realizes he won't get there before the troll will. Suddenly, the scrawny, little farm girl jumps in front of Bilbo, one hand pushing the hobbit behind her and the other wielding a branch. The troll swings and she blocks, the branch splintering from the impact. The bones in her ribs stand out harshly in the firelight as she backs up, standing protectively in front of Bilbo.
"Look out!" Fili cries. The girl shoves Bilbo to the ground but the troll backhands her and the strike lifts her off of her feet. She crashes into a tree and something snaps as her back bends sharply. The troll grabs Bilbo and Fili's face falls. The girl remains motionless at the base of the tree.
As the trolls use Bilbo to demand a surrender from the dwarves, Fili quickly kneels next to the girl. She is barely more than bone and some thin muscle. A bruise covers one half of her face and her torn pant leg on the right side is covered in dried blood. He gently touches the base of her ear where it meets her neck and is relieved to feel a pulse. She stirs weakly and her eyes gaze up at him for no more than a moment before a troll snatches him.
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This is one of the most humiliating moments of his life. Trussed in a sack and unceremoniously piled on the ground next to Oin and his brother, Fili feels like an utter fool. He is perversely happy he is not among the dwarves tied to the roasting spit. Every time he tries to think of a way out of this predicament, his mind goes blank.
A good ten paces away, the woman is trussed to one of the trees in the clearing. It's not as if she can run anyways. Now that they aren't in the middle of a battle with raging trolls, he can see a nasty, puckered laceration that spans her right leg from just below her knee to mid-thigh. He also suspects she has fractured ribs by the way she is listing to one side as if to try and relieve some pain. She's too weak from malnourishment to try and fight back and her head lolls on her shoulder. Her eyes are open though and as the trolls discuss cooking techniques, he sees a shrewd intelligence flash in her gaze. She knows how to watch and bide her time. He admires the fight he sees is still in her.
Almost as if she senses him watching her, her eyes drift over to him. Her gaze is hazy and unfocused but he can't help but be stunned by her eyes. They are this beautiful stormy blue-grey that are unlike anything he's ever seen before. Most Dwarf eyes are brown and grey, the simple colors of the tunnels and earth they live in. Hers are the color of a raging sky, fierce and powerful. Her eyelids flutter slightly and then close as she passes out again, slipping into unconsciousness.
"Kili," Fili whispers to his brother. Kili's feet are in his face, an uncomfortable but not novel situation since they are brothers. Kili wriggles to the side a bit so he can meet Fili's eyes. "The girl," he whispers to his brother and Kili's eyes automatically go to the tree where the woman is slumped over. "I think...I think she's in bad shape, maybe even…dying. We need to do something."
Bilbo hears this exchange and looks over at the woman. He sees out of the corner of his eye that Thorin is watching the woman as well, with that dark considering look he always has. There's something about her, something that almost feels like fate. For some reason, despite the wounded state she is in, Bilbo knows that she is meant to be here. He doesn't know why but he does know that this woman is far more than she seems.
"They should be grilled and sautéed with a sprinkle of sage," the cook troll is saying.
"Is this really necessary?" Nori yells from the spit.
"Forget about the seasoning," the flat-faced troll says. "We ain't got all night. Dawn ain't far away. I don't fancy being turned to stone."
This gives Bilbo pause as the rest of the dwarves struggle in their sacks around him.
He doesn't realize he's stood up until he has, and has hopped up to try and distract the trolls. He has no idea what he is going to do until he hears the words coming out of his own mouth.
"Wait," he says, hopping closer to the spit to gain the troll's attention. "You are making a terrible mistake."
The dwarves protest as the troll's attention swings to Bilbo. "You can't reason with them, they're half wits!" Dori yells.
"Half wits!" Bofur retorts. "What does that make us?!"
"I meant with the, um the seasoning," Bilbo says.
"What about the seasoning?" the cook asks, showing just a glimmer of interest.
Bilbo doesn't really have a plan but he blunders on, doing his best to bluff. "Well have you smelled them?" He asks, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "You're gonna need something stronger that sage before you plate this lot up."
The dwarves respond with an outcry of "traitor" and "idiot" while Dwalin threatens him menacingly from the spit…. Or as menacing as a dwarf can be while in his underclothes, tied to a spit over a fire.
"What do you know about cooking dwarf?" The flat-faced troll demands.
"Shut up!" The cook growls. "Let the flugerler-burgalur-hobbit talk."
Bilbo gives a little absurd laugh and "thank you" to the troll. "Uh, the secret to cooking dwarf… is, um….,"
"Yes?" The troll demands, rapt. "Come one, say it."
"Yes, yes, I'm telling you." Bilbo says. All the dwarves are watching him. "The secret to cooking dwarf is…tooooo…,"
